A Daily Dose of Zen Sarcasm!

Awkward Like an Elizabethan Collar

Elizabethan Garden, originally uploaded by Madame Meow.

I know an insane number of Elizabeths.

Well, maybe "insane" is not the right word-- and as far as I know, most of the Elizabeths I know are not insane either. But definitely, the occurrence of this name within my circle of acquaintance is relatively high; not as high as the Christinas I know, but it's up there and it's more than five.

Plus I couldn't find any pictures of a Christinian Garden. So there.

Anyway, I'm not naming names, ironically so, but some Elizabeths in my garden are battier than others. So maybe there is something to the insanity here. But fear not, gentle reader --and especially gentle reader named Elizabeth: this post is not about you if you're named Elizabeth.

Or is it?

This post is about self-promotion.

File Under "Warts and All"

Battle Scar (Day one hundred and one), originally uploaded by Madame Meow.

Sometimes, it's hard to stop and realize things are not okay.

When you are a person prone to (ahem) wit and (fsh!) humorously making light of a situation, your suddenly serious and possibly dramatic behavior becomes kind of a weird oxymoronic dobule-whammy of bafflement to some people.

Confusion ensues. Bitterness overfloweth cup. Mind explodes-- most things remain unsaid.

So sometimes it's easy just to write about your feelings, as cheap and high school as that all sounds. Here goes an attempt to organize my mind. I share it mostly so that any of you out there who have ever wanted to say these things to a friend can sit back with me and go, "YESSSSS."

Then, we can all be silent together. Deal?

___________

Dear charmingly, but utterly, self-absorbed friend who I still talk to, in spite of the years and despite the fact that most conversations revolve around the fact that your life is awesomer than mine even when things are not well; and who I know for a fact that you don't read my blog because you kind of think blogs are ridiculous things that nerdy people "do",

Yes: I have reasons to grieve. Grief is not limited to death and dying. People can grieve over temporary changes, if those changes are life-altering enough.

Even if 99% of the time my Facebook status update has something baffling and semi-obscure such as, "Now with more pep!" or "Swimming in a bubble of my own making," or my personal favorite, "Ferrying souls across the Styx for fun and profit," sometimes I get emo.

I said it: I get totally down-on-myself, why-is-my-husband-in-a-scary-place, why-am-I-getting-older, damn-kids-won't-shut-up, woe-is-me, overgrown-bangs and shuffly-walk emo.

In other words, even those of us who joke a lot (or fail trying) have our feelings. And sometimes, amazingly, we don't want to hide them behind a wall of obscure popular culture references.

Sometimes we want you to ask (and want you to mean it, when you ask) how we are doing. You can indicate this by pausing longer than three seconds before you launch into "mm-hmm" mode-- you know, those vocal fillers that indicate to me that you're thinking about your next awesome thing happening in your life rather than paying attention to boring old mine.

For crying out loud: even when you were nearly destitute you were still carrying on about how awesome your life is! I don't know if that is indefatigable optimism or something more Machiavellian whose purpose I cannot entirely elucidate (Intimidation through gritty awesomeness? It's very 1930s in a way).

I realize I have issues. I also realize I sound very petty here, but honestly, I should probably be saying some of these things to your face.

I realize as I write this that I've sat back and let you take the reins in this friendship-- you are Batman and I am Robin, forever stuck with unflattering yellow tights and eternal pimply youth in your mind.

Finally, I realize that people change. I treasure our shared past and I treasure the many great memories and times we have shared over the years. And I think that next time we talk, I'm just going to unload on you.

And in the immortal words of Wayne Campbell, "If you blow chunks and she comes back, she's yours. But if you spew and she bolts, then it was never meant to be."

True friends don't bolt. They are allowed to tease you mercilessly about how pathetic you looked when you hurled, but they pass you the mop and bucket afterward.

2 ~ The High Priestess

I was reading the other day about how it is hoped that Hilary Swank's new movie, "Amelia" will be a box office draw and not another one of those "women movies" that do not lure people to the movies.

The exact line struck me as particulary ominous:

If it ["Amelia"]fails, it will be cited as yet more proof that strong female protagonists are box office poison. (Click here to read the rest of it-- sorry, subscription required)

The article goes on to say that apart from hits such as Sex and the City and Mamma Mia!,  strong women in movies are not a draw whatsoever.  I thought of Kill Bill, Vol. 1 & 2, myself, but maybe studios would also think those movies flukes.

Then again, maybe the industry has a point.  A simple look at the user-voted Internet Movie Database's Top 100 kind of takes care of any doubters.  The top ten movies are as follows:

Rank	Rating	Title	Votes
1.	9.1	The Shawshank Redemption (1994)	452,492
2.	9.1	The Godfather (1972)	369,952
3.	9.0	The Godfather: Part II (1974)	216,860
4.	8.9	Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo. (1966)	136,191
5.	8.9	Pulp Fiction (1994)	370,419
6.	8.8	Schindler's List (1993)	245,444
7.	8.8	One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)	188,709
8.	8.8	The Dark Knight (2008)	399,886
9.	8.8	12 Angry Men (1957)	99,118
10.	8.8	Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980)	250,822

Okay.  So out of these ten movies, NONE of the main characters are female.  Arguments could be made as to how,

1. There are women in nine out of ten of the movies (The Shawshank Redemption was a sausagefest, mostly set in jail).
2. Appallingly, The Empire Strikes Back is the one movie where Princess Leia --a bona fide strong female lead-- confesses her love for Han Solo who, like a total asshole, doesn't say it back, but instead says, "I know."
3. Curiously, Pulp Fiction may be the one movie with the strongest female lead.  Except that, you know, she ends up overdosing on heroin.  Magic Markers will never be the same.

Okay.  Point made, point taken.  But why?  Why is this so?

Invoking my "Bullshit my way out of blog" card, I believe it is because powerful women make people uncomfortable.  It's always okay to see men angry, brooding, displeased, or chased around.

We do not, as a society, expect or even want to truly, really see a woman spewing foul vitriol during a chummy conversation; squinting grittily into the desert sun while munching the end of a cigar; sending severed heads as calling cards; pretending to be insane and then getting electroshock therapy; getting gang-raped in the laundry room of a Maine prison; or even running a successful and seemingly-callous business operation while saving people from extermination. 

For all our bravado and the things we can and DO do, we women would rather be the pretty princesses, or the lovely wives who order five dollar shakes and sip on the straw with perfectly manicured hands.  The women in these movies, with very few exceptions (and a niggling omission here and there as I have not seen a few of these movies all the way through, though I am familiar with their plots and characters since they are part of the popular culture canon), are the weathervanes: the happier and more stable they seem, the better we feel.  Michael Corleone's girlfriend married him, after all-- we thought we could trust him, too.

Even Nurse Ratched, wretched creature that she is, seems to want to point out that there is a better way-- an easier, more compliant way, perhaps, but it didn't have to end like it did.

_________

I'm quite sure many won't agree with my mini-psychoanalysis of these movies.  You don't really have to-- opinions are like leaves and they rain freely down on you, especially at this time of year.  However, there is a fuzzy point in there somewhere: women are not men.

And speaking of that, here comes The High Priestess.  Through the years people have disliked the idea that there could be such a "heretical" card as that of a female pope or female priest inserted into the deck.  But the truth is that a female aspect to a deity or a higher power is an essential, if often overlooked, role.  A female power is not going to be like an action-hero, wrathful, action-figure Jesus, if you will, but she will have her feminine attributes, feminists be damned.

And so, it is with the movies: every movie needs her feminine side.  They are all there, seen and unseen, those women who help tell the story.  And curiously, when they have the spotlight or when their role pushes the boundaries of expected roles, people react-- sometimes approvingly, but other times less so.

The feminine aspect is, maddeningly to many, subtle.

So is the unconscious mind, which this card represents.

And frankly, this unconscious mind needs to sleep.  I may continue my rant without end tomorrow, as I talk about the Empress, or the worldly aspect of womanhood.  ZzzzzZzzzzz.

1 ~ The Magician

In all the months since Michael Jackson's death, it was only on Friday night that I felt the least bit sad or wistful about it.

It was kind of an odd, bittersweet experience.

_______

Card number one on a standard tarot deck is called the Magician.  Some decks have the figure playing a trick.  Some have it typed simply as a young man.  In some decks, he looks peaceful and almost holy, with an infinity sign over his head.

But the Magician is a paltry step above the Fool, really: the card most likely represents a small-time con artist, pulling a fast one on an invisible audience.

And yet, he is the Magician: making something appear out of not much.  Even the pettiest con artist knows that a little imagination and a little trust go a long way.  And as these two increase exponentially, so does the reach of your show.  It is an infinite slope of possibilities, and it can be something majestic, or it can be a game of shells and $20 in your pocket.

________

The day before Halloween, at the edge of our neighborhood, a local dance studio organized a Thriller dance at an empty parking lot close by.  Hundreds of costumed people danced, in varying degrees of skill, the dance made famous by Michael Jackson back in '83.

It was a great event-- everyone looked happy and like they were having fun.  (Wanna see a few pix I took?) But as they did the steps, attempting to recreate the choreography of Michael Peters and enjoying the pulsating music with its distant discoey echoes, I was surprised at how sad I became for a moment.

These people were dancing for the entertainment of hundreds of strangers because Michael Jackson was able to make this devilishly hard choreography look easy.  They wanted to do what he did-- to be him and his army of graceful zombies, if only for the four-plus minutes of the song.

But no one can do that dance justice: only Michael Jackson ever really could.  There was no syncopation that could trip him up.  He could add an extra three moves into a beat and make it look like it was a simple walk.

And that magician of dance is gone, simply and stupidly, at the age of 50.  He wasted his potential and his brilliance with legal battles and drugs, and his last years were a pathetic imitation of a life.

But when he shone with the power of his magic (yes, I wrote that sentence: read or cringe), he gave us Thriller.

Thriller.

Eat your heart out, Edward Cullen

Eat your heart out, Edward Cullen, originally uploaded by Madame Meow.

So by now I assume that most of my readership has at least picked up one of the volumes from the vampire oeuvre by that mensch of kitsch, Stephenie Meyer: the Twilight Saga.

(Aside: Her name bothers me. Why must she spell "Stephanie" with an E?)

And yes, I have swooned over Edward and have tried to put out of my mind the whole freaky obsessive, stalkeresque, folie à deux quality of their love and have just enjoyed the swoon for what it is.

But I refuse to suspend my disbelief for a Volvo S60. I mean, a VOLVO?! The car of choice of hippies, broke college students, and eternal adolescents the world over is the car that the man of girly womanhood's collective dreams drives?

How is that possible?

I mean, with the possible exception of The Saint's Volvo P1800 --the very Volvo portrayed here, which we Meows got to see in person at Barracks Row's Oktoberfest today-- and perhaps the little Volvo that was actually picked out for the Twilight movie (thank goodness for consultants), I cannot think of a more soporific car for anyone to drive.

Seriously. Volvos are dependable and supposedly great in a crash, but I just don't get all starry-eyed thinking about them. I tend to associate Sweden with unfailingly polite people, meatballs, and an evil den of terribly chic and affordable home furnishings; and not associate them with sexy and precise automotive engineering.

Funny thing is, I've just been to Stephenie (grr) Meyer's website,  where she discusses her car choices for her characters. Amazingly enough, she discloses that she cut the Aston Martin Vanquish that Edward drove as his "special occasion" car from Twilight.

Aston. Martin.

One could make the argument that perhaps a Volvo is the right choice for understated Edward, who just wants to blend in.

Alas, how can he blend in if he's gorgeous and sparkly and surrounded by his weird family, AND if his family drives BMWs and Mercedes-Benzes?

So now you know: it's not the part about the vampires and the werewolves roaming the earth and being deadly enemies that makes my suspension of disbelief go AWOL: it's the Volvo.

This Is NOT a Good Thing

I have loved Martha Stewart for a long time.  Mine has been a restrained, platonic, high-thread-count kind of tenderness toward her and, mostly, toward what she represents.  She is one nation, under her massive ego, with linens and good things for all.

I love her magazine, most of all.  I remember coveting a copy that my then-25-going-on-40 step-sister acquired while visiting during Christmas vacation.  As with most of Marthas' covers, it was suffused with color, radiance, and that detached feeling that you get from someone who has a lot of money and knows how to spend it elegantly-- the way their hair hangs just so, gathered in the delicate tortoiseshell clip, while they wallow in their crisp clothing as if their molecules were held together by a light breeze.  I think of Audrey Hepburn and her cigarette pants, and I smile/covet/gape.

But my love for Martha may not be able to survive Twitter.  Twitter: shatterer of illusion.

___________

The problem with instant publishing is just that: it is instant.  There are no edits and no anxious PR people standing around, spray-tanning flaws and shrieking nervously for the geeks to move it with the damned Photoshop because time is money, bitches. 

There are no handlers and no managers and no image consultants.

And there is no grammarian.

So when Martha-- connected minx that she is-- decided to cross over to the cool side and join Twitter, she did so all on her own.

And my vision of perfection has forever been marred by her irresponsible run-on sentence use.

_________

I realize nowadays no one cares about grammar.  This is plenty obvious because I still remember our collective groans and protestations back in AP English when our beloved/behated English teacher made us check out these ancient little books from her private collection and zoom in on such arcane, draconian details such as whether the colons are missing from the time stamp; when do you use 'it's' and 'its'; why it's important to make your subject and your verb agree; or whether "would of" is ever correct (no).

And we AP kids sucked at grammar.  We didn't know what a split infinitive was, or why it's important not to separate its components (<--oh snap!  she illustrates with a non-split infinitive!).  And we didn't know the horror of fragments and run-ons.

Fragments are fun.  The Internets?  Fragment. Abuse. City. Teh awezum.  Really: a sentence may look odiously incomplete to some without a verb, but most people do the fragment thing for emphasis' sake. 

Although I admit, I have seen some pretty bad fragments. Which just want to make me cry.

But run-ons have this choked, harried, mismanaged-mother-of-six quality: they are trying to do too much and the content just snowballs and the bottom line is that you sound like you really need Adderall. Or, alternately, you sound like you're just not very smart.

Sorry.  It's true.  When you don't even know how to parse your thoughts with a period, let alone colons, semicolons or at least a freaking dash or a comma (A COMMA!), for the love of something holy, you don't sound like you know how to write and that speaks volumes about who you are (i.e. not someone who shines with his/her use of language).

So you see, when I read Martha Stewart Living and especially when I read her monthly essay, I assume my paragon of perfection actually writes THAT WELL (if, really, dreadfully boringly).  Now I need to adjust and realize that there is a whole team of editors who make Martha NOT sound like this:

after five days with the "girls" on our road trip happy to be home and ready for bed buit not until i finish Genesis a novel about A.I.about 22 hours ago from web

still on maine rd trip in movies about to see bruno no idea what its about decorating? any info to share?7:47 PM Jul 18th from mobile web

it is raining in maine for the 31st day in a row the moss and woodland is thriving but the vegetables and flowers are suffering campers too7:35 AM Jul 18th from web

i am tweeting from the car on a blackberry odd things happen is this perfect technology?6:54 AM Jul 15th from mobile web

Dining at jean georges with the purina folks do your pets eat purina? tomorrow our blogs are about pet adoption9:00 PM Jul 14th from mobile web

the red camera is made by the red digital cinema co-very high resolution digital cinematography finally available at reasonable prices9:57 PM Jul 13th from web

So yes.  Martha sounds like a teenager, or possibly like a dotty doofus, even as she vacations in her gorgeous Maine bespoke getaway, watches hip movies, uses her BlackBerry and promotes herself and her products.

And now, after having written this, I feel oddly better about myself. 

And There Was Much Merriment, and Bread Pudding

Glorious Ceiling, originally uploaded by Madame Meow.

In case you're not familiar with DC's Eastern Market, it is a lovely little building tucked in the heart of the Capitol Hill neighborhood, an anchor of bricks holding down 7th street SE, C street SE and North Carolina Avenue SE.

It was built in 1873 and designed by Adolph Cluss --no doubt, a man who was so named because he was born in a time where the name was just another Scandinavian name, and no more.

The building, though much loved, had become dilapidated and dirty.  And in the early hours of April 30th, 2007, it burned down, leaving little left but a smoldering hull of bricks, glass and debris.

Our collective community hearts broke.  Here is something I wrote that morning.

The picture above was taken on June 26th, the day that Eastern Market rose like a salmon-colored phoenix from the ashes of that fire two years ago. Shortly after taking it, I paused to wipe my face and a fellow patron, equally moved but not nearly as embarrassingly so asked me, "Are you crying?"

"Tears of joy," I grinned.

I am so glad you're back, dear friend.

__________

Some friends go away and come back --sometimes even better than when they left us, as is the case with Eastern Market, which is now air-conditioned, basemented, sky-lighted, properly-toileted, and originally-salmon-pinked on the inside.

And sometimes friends go away forever.

Last week we lost several famous people -- Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, Michael Jackson, and even OxiClean guru Billy Mays (I love OxiClean.  I will forever remember Billy Mays's rough, loud voice whenever I make my laundry cleaner and brighter). In a local accident last week, we also lost nine lives in a senseless and preventable collision on the Red line.

Although death is an intrinsic part of life, it always catches us by surprise. Frankly, the responses to Michael Jackson's death to me have been a little over the top as it is my honest opinion that the genius who dazzled and entertained back in the eighties and early nineties was dead and gone almost ten years ago, and had been replaced by a ghostlike, eccentric and truly pathetic man-child who didn't see anything wrong with wearing pajamas to court after arriving three hours late.   But it is still sad to see someone go at only 50 years of age, with so much wasted potential. 

In my heart and mind, however, the deaths that made me saddest were those of the ordinary citizens of this adopted city with which I fell in love --a couple of whom happened to be neighbors; not the kind of close neighbors who may pick up your mail for a day or two, but the kind of neighbors you see parking their car and coming and going-- the kind that you probably take for granted and may view as background, until the day you realize that a freak accident means you'll never see them driving down the street ever again or waving a warm hello at you as you unload your grocery shopping.

I don't like to think that those mourning could have been us, as Rev. Mom happened to also be using the Red Line that day.  When death is truly close --not just fanatic-close-- your emotions become selfish and self-preserving and complicated.  It's no longer wistful or just plain emotional; suddenly, there is the mind-racing and the feeling that life will never be the same.

That is the thing about death: it's not personal, and yet it is extremely personal.  And as a friend said, death is only sad to those left behind. 

_________

But the upside of death is that, along with the sadness, new life comes along. This is not always obvious when a person, a beloved, or a friend is the one who passes away. But in the case of a building, it can be easy to see what happens when we are able to turn the corner and find there is much to celebrate and much to be grateful for.

I am grateful that Eastern Market is back.  And I am glad that I knew our neighbors, even if faintly.  And I am glad that there were kind and brave people who were willing to help or, in the case of the very brave Metro operator who applied the emergency brake that failed, willing to stare death down doing what was right.

And so I mourn and celebrate this June of 2009, which will never again come, and I remember all the good that came of it.

__________

Celebrate with me: what were some notable things that happened to you this June?

But Will He Be Graded On a Curve, or Just a Trough?

This is just a short note because I recently ran across this poll from MSNBC asking the public to give President Obama a grade --naturally, on the occasion that he will have been one hundred days in office on Thursday, 30 April.

Click here to go answer the poll and look at the results and then tell me, if you would,

1. Were you surprised by the results?

2. If so, do you agree with the extremes or find yourself somewhere in the middle? 

3. If not I'd love to hear your rationale.

(In the spirit of full disclosure, I will tell you I've awarded him a grade of C-- neither absolutely wonderful nor thoroughly disastrous)

I must say that in the wake of an election where so many people got involved in politics and were so motivated to get to the polls, I find it a little surprising myself that discourse about pressing issues has dwindled to a small tap-tap-tapping like a faucet trickle. 

Wiggity Wack, 2009 Vintage

I honestly thought I'd be able to hold off a few more years before I got to write one of those "damn young whippersnaper" posts.

Oh well.

________

The other day I was watching Herr Meow play with a little friend of his.  The nanny and I were talking and I noted that her youngest charge had his onesie on backwards.  It was a polo-shirt-looking deal, so it was quite obvious that the collar and three tiny buttons belonged around the front.

I chuckled and said something like, "That's some Kriss Kross thing he's got going on there."

She looked up at me, blankly and, perhaps in my paranoid mind, irritated.

"Girls' onesies normally button at the back.  I must have gotten confused."

Blinking back joke-misunderstanding irritation, I wagered, "You've never heard of Kriss Kross, huh?"

She smiled and shook her head, as if I'd asked her if she'd ever used bread cataplasms for consumption or if her doctor had applied leeches to her body for her last catarrh.  So I spent the next five awkward minutes as impromptu social anthropologist, conveying to her that this once-tween one-hit rap duo who hailed from Atlanta liked to wear their clothes backwards as their gimmicky fashion statement.

"Oh I see," she said.  Then she was quiet for a while.  And then I calculated that she was no older than seven when these kids had been jumping around and reaching around to their butts to get their flies open.

That was awkward.

________

Back when the Mac Daddy and the Daddy Mac were busy peeing with their pants around their ankles, I followed with near religious devotion the Billboard Hot 100.  Since my high school library, as well as the local library, had a Billboard and a Rolling Stone subscription, I would check the ascent, descent, and plateau of all the bands that were It at the moment.  I sat in that musty library and saw Nirvana and Pearl Jam and Dr. Dre and En Vogue (remember En Vogue?) tearing up the overall charts and their particular genre, every week on Billboard and Rolling Stone.  Perhaps it was not every week, but the memory-heavy mind makes poetic allowances that edit the part about not doing my French homework or using my biology term-project research time to gather music biz information instead.

And in the afternoons,  I could walk down to the local library and stalk objects of crush while keeping up with said charts.  Ah, glorious teenage years, so filled with time to waste and in which to obsess over people who end up looking (and being!) like escaped convicts.

I knew all the little symbols and I loved tracking songs.  I loved rooting against songs, but most of all I loved checking to see if my favorite acts were moving up or sagging toward the bottom.  I hated that the week listed was that of two weeks prior, but at the time I didn't overthink the particulars of chart tracking.

Well, today I checked Billboard.com and I discovered one very simple thing:  it is no longer 1992 and I no longer want Touré's job.

________

Now, before you think me as out of touch as I probably am, I will tell you: in the Top 10, I recognize eight out of ten acts. 

[Question: does Flo Rida pronounce his name as "Flow Ridah"?  Because if he doesn't, then it's not clever enough.  As it is, it sounds more like an allusion to menstruation than anything else.]

That is "recognize"-- as in I know who the people are.  Alas, I can't actually recall one single song in my mind.  So yes, I am painfully unhip these days --though I must say that if listening to Lady GaGa is being hip, I'm going to pass on that ("Poker Face" sounds more like the title to her autobiography).

Also, Miley Cyrus?  Seriously?  Does the 13-and-under set now control hipness, or is this really just all about the dirty, filthy money?  Have people no taste?  Honestly, shouldn't we be thinking about the children at this point?  MILEY CYRUS SUCKS!  It's the polar opposite of taste!  It's jejune and simplistic and Disney and the Velveeta of music!  RARG!

Maybe it's been about the money all along, and I'm just realizing it, about seventeen years too late.

And maybe, just maybe, it's never been about being young.  It's just about who you know.

Stop Pulling The Lemongrass Brocade Over Our Eyes

Dear fashion world at large,

I wondered how you were going to play it.  I wondered if you were going to be drinking deep from the fabled river in Egypt when it came to Michelle Obama's inauguration dress, or if you were actually going to call it as your eyes saw it-- which is to say, unflatteringly draped on the body of a woman who deserved to look better on her first day on the job.

Robin Givhan in particular gave us a saccharine whopper, confusing the importance of the husband's moment with the relevance of a dress that made his wife look big, bulky, dowdy, and --yes, I will say it-- FRUMPY.

(sorry-- WaPo online is subscription, but it's worth it)

(And P.S. to Ms. Givhan: most women LIKE looking pretty.  Next thing we know, you'll be writing about how lukewarm water is made by mixing hot and cold water.  Earth-shattering, I know.  Please credit me as a source if you go with that lead.)

___________

Michelle Obama has shown us a few things about herself in these whirlwind months:

1. She has a nice, healthy-looking body and buff arms;

2. She's taller than her husband, at least in moderate heels;

3. She can look quite good in her clothes;

4. But every once in a while she can pick some sublimely, unflatteringly ugly dresses (see her horrid Black Widow Spider fiasco that she wore the night Obama won the election).

So let's get one thing out of the way: I bear no ill-will against Michelle Obama as a possible fashion icon.  I think she brings new blood to the office of First Lady, and I look forward to seeing her style develop as she becomes more comfortable in her role. 

Let's get another thing out of the way as well: one man's bane is another man's blessing.  In other words, what some may think is ugly or unflattering, others may find beautiful, harmonious and complimentary.  This is why art --and make no mistake, that fashion is a big part of art-- is so subjective and hard to categorize. 

But there are a few things most people can agree upon.  I will also list these:

a. Fit is an essential part of any outfit.  Bad fit= bad outfit, regardless of how pretty the materials or the colors may be.

b. Certain colors look better on people, more so than others.  This is known as the Color Me Beautiful principle.  Some may deride it, but people who look good in jewel tones should not try to go with drab colors, and vice versa, and that is a fact.  Yes.  I said "fact."

c. A person who normally looks good in clothes but suddenly looks dumpy in her clothes should blame the clothes and not herself.  She should also stay away from those kinds of clothes (paging Isabel Toledo and issuing her a restraining order against her sewing machine).

___________

So back to Michelle Obama emerging from the Capitol yesterday:

I was disappointed.

I could definitely see the merits of wanting to wear a cheerful shade of lemongrassy yellow on a cold winter's day; however, there are several points wrong with her choice, the first of which was that the color DID NOT LOOK GOOD ON HER.

It was a shade that was neither here nor there-- neither really yellow nor really gold, and definitely not green enough. Certainly not even in the ballpark of Pantone's color of the year --mimosa yellow, and possibly a much better choice of a bright, delightful yellow for our new First Lady. The diamanté collar ornament thingy was a bit over the top for morning, but it was kind of cute and did not bug me.  What bugged me was that HER OUTFIT MADE HER LOOK FAT.

Fat.  Bulky.  Dumpy.  Like the Michelle-in woman.  Padded.  Oversized.  Possibly warm, thank goodness, because it was cold yesterday.  But yeah-- I said it: she looked BIG.

Michelle Obama is a brickhouse to begin with: she is not a petite Laura Bush type, who in my opinion looked elegant and understated  in a lovely shade of gray (which I'm sure many people found boring).  She can and should wear tailored outfits that show off her shape, but without dipping into no-pantyhose, skirt-way-too-high, and boots-way-too-young-for-her Jill Biden territory.  But her dress made her look like she had been padded, and not just for warmth.  Add to this her impressive height, and you have something in which she would and did look uncomfortable for a good part of the day.  You don't need to be a body language expert to see that in many of the official pictures of the day, Mrs. Obama is seem trying to blend into the background and diminish her shape-- something she was not trying to do with her far-prettier inaugural ball dress.

So, no.  Please don't try to sell to people with eyes that Mrs. Obama looked awesome while holding that Lincoln Bible: it's unfair to her, and to the many sartorial possibilities yet to happen through her.

She can look better than that, and I hope she does, because fashion is supposed to be fun and because being about ten years younger than the outgoing First Lady and much more statuesque than, say, Mrs. Clinton (not to mention less padded in the saddlebag area) gives her a great advantage and plenty of unexplored places to go, fashion-wise.

Just, please-- let us all stay away from the Nile.

Walk it Out and Put a Lid on It

One of the more charming aspects of an internet community that has no censorship, such as comments posted to public sites like YouTube, is the astounding variety of stupid that one can find in this green earth.

The fine points of mental feebleness encountered in these comments must be seen to be believed, not to mention the creative spellings and grammar.  But of course you fine people who come here to read my blog are familiar with the comment trolls and spammers who like to insult everything and anything in their path-- therefore I need say no more about that.

Except that I am late to the "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It) party, and I too want to say my bit about the shocking amounts of hate spewed in all directions over this video, and specifically over its choreography.

So, you know, hold on to thy proverbial effing hat.

____________

In case you, like me on occasion, live underneath a rock, there has been as of late a very popular song by Beyoncé by the title of "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)".  The song is about commitment, the ring in mention being an engagement ring, and the chorus referring to the simple yet poignant statement that if you, young responsible bachelor, actually like the woman you're dating you should probably proffer a ring as a sign of your love and commitment to this woman.  Because, you know, many women like that kind of tchotchke, as we're genetically engineered to hoard and to seek mates who are able providers as much as the gents are genetically predisposed to want to screw anything that moves. 

In other words, it's an "eff you, buddy-- I'll probably get the proverbial ring (i.e. commitment) from a worthwhile suitor, so suck it, you tepid douchebag" kind of statement.  Personally, any song that gives some self-respect to doormat-prone women is a welcome song, but I realize that my feminist roots are showing.

The song was released back in October, and as with all songs in our modern times, a video was released alongside it a few days later.  The video in question is a bare-bones black-and-white choreographed piece which was inspired by a viral video on YouTube; this one was a dance routine created by legendary choreographer and director Bob Fosse and which was performed on the Ed Sullivan Show by his wife at the time, Gwen Verdon.  If you have not seen this routine, it's worth a watch:

The music, "Mexican Breakfast", I find a little dated --it definitely screams 1960s; and the polyester suits the dancers are wearing are a little jarring on the senses.  However, the choreography itself is clean, crisp and brilliant in its simplicity; it looks deceptively easy, and yet it has sudden turns and rhythmic twists that keep you focused on it.  And I am not saying this to tout myself as a dance expert, which I am not: the fact that the video had already been set to other songs and was in itself an inspiration to Beyoncé --and myriad parodists thence-- is just a testament to just how good a good artist can be (and I am referring to Fosse's genius and to Verdon's crisp interpretation of his moves).  So when you see Beyoncé's tribute performance, you see all the elements of the original, but with an extra sauciness that makes the choreography her own.  Where Gwen Verdon shimmies and thrusts in a rogue pixieish way, Beyoncé's hips shake to and fro in a thoroughly sexual manner which is enhanced by her choice of a very suggestive and skintight leotard that is cut almost dangerously high.

For those of you who have not seen Beyoncé shaking her particular junk, I give you the link, because embedding has been disabled.  Click here to see "Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)."

It Is In the A-List of My Heart

I've written on here before about how sometimes I wish I didn't have an inner editor who makes me write niceties.  For that matter, I wish sometimes my life were devoid of an editor, and that I had the balls to, say, have told off in no uncertain terms the lady who rudely did this weird standoff at Best Buy while asking me "exactly what I wanted to dance with here" just because SHE bumped into me and I froze, trying to get out of her way.

I mean, really: I realize that she wanted to get through the alley, just so she could pick up some batteries, cut in line in front of another older lady, and yell at the cashier for his inability to guarantee her that the batteries she was buying would REALLY work, but the fact is that a seven-month pregnancy belly makes you a little uncoordinated, especially when some old flaccid bag of bones is trying to get up in my face, bullying me, intimidating me with her nasty demeanor.

So, to that lady I wish I'd said something witty and sharp, along the lines of "Go eff yourself, you old bitter coont."

You get the picture.  And no, I am not sorry for thinking of (some of) my elders that way.

_________

Which is why I love Dlisted.

I have already given thanks for the grace that is Dlisted in my daily life, but I think that a one-sentence blurb is not enough.  Honestly, it really isn't: because Dlisted and its author, Michael K. bring that much joy and mirth into my life on a regular basis.

Also, and this is something I must say as someone who fancies herself a writer, not only is he funny but he's also a great writer, typos and coarse language.  He is like the Faulkner of the tabloid rag; like a fabulously gay twenty-first century Jane Austen; like a bright beacon of painful truth and OMG-I-was-thinking-the-same-thing that lights the way and cuts through our automaton world.

I've been reading Dlisted now for almost three years, and it's been a privilege to watch this blogger evolve as a writer and as a person (even people with black hearts have a tender side, by the way).  Of course, it helps that for the main part I agree with most of his statements, especially his wonder and contempt at celebrities who name their kids normal vs. not normal things; but it's just nice to read something that is funny and sarcastic and caustic but deeep within very sweet.  And not just read it once a day, but see that this guy works actively at his site every single day of the year, several times a day.

Now THAT is dedication.

So, without further ado, and before I realize what I'm doing, I leave you with much catching up to do if you've never read Dlisted.  Enjoy, sluts!

I Wonder What Those Dents on the Couch *Really* Mean

Aimlessly trying to figure out what to blog about.  I'm still thinking I'll take up a 365 day challenge, but for now I leave you with something I found via kottke.org, originally at Bullshit:

The ultimate personality test

It’s not strange to disagree about movies that are wildly different, and there are surely a few random movies that are very polarizing. What I find most interesting is which movie people consider the best movie from a particular director, as it is usually very telling and polarizing in a different way, so to this point I will propose a new personality test where you reblog your favorite movie from each of these directors:

1. Joel Coen: No Country for Old Men, The Big Lebowski, Fargo, The Hudsucker Proxy, Miller’s Crossing, Raising Arizona, etc
2. Wes Anderson: The Darjeeling Limited, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, The Royal Tennenbaums, Rushmore, Bottle Rocket, etc
3. Hal Ashby: Being There, Shampoo, Harold and Maude, etc
4. Kevin Smith: Zack and Miri Make a Porno, Dogma, Chasing Amy, Mallrats, Clerks, etc
5. Quentin Tarantino: Grindhouse, Kill Bill, Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs, etc

.
I find it a fascinating idea, mostly because people LOVE to argue about this stuff.  Get any group of holier-than-thou intellectuals, pseudointellectuals, wannabe intellectuals, or self-proclaimed total movie buffs together and you could bet against the clock to see who'll bring up one of these movies up first --either by quote or by scene-- and who else will threaten to beat the shit up out of the other person because there is NO WAY that movie is better than the other one. 

Note I say "threaten"-- intellectuals are notoriously pussy about stuff like that.  I speak from experience.

Another noteworthy item-- sometimes your favorite movie may be the only one you've seen.  I've only seen two Wes Anderson films and two-and-a-half Hal Ashby, so in some ways it's unfair to pick a winner out of such a slender selection, you know?  On the other hand, if you've seen every movie by a certain director, picking a favorite is like picking among your kids-- it's bizarrely Sophie's Choice-y.

Without further ado, my picks are The Big Lebowski (possibly my favorite movie EVAR, although, honestly, that was hard, because, I mean, Fargo???); The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (because I totally HATED The Royal Tenenbaums and so bring it on, bitches); Harold and Maude (although Peter Sellers was so eerily amazing in Being There that I feel I should go with the less popular choice); Dogma (hands down, my favorite, although Clerks will always have a special place in my heart); and finally, although Pulp Fiction and both Kill Bill movies would be the logical choices here, I have always liked best the less-heralded, grittier and shittier-told Jackie Brown. 

Judge as you see fit; also, I would love to see your replies!

A Barometric Fractal

This morning I promised Herr Meow one show before breakfast.  As we turned the tv on, NBC came out blaring --a holdover from last night's Office/30 Rock commitment-- and Al Roker gushed about his weather spotlight city of the day: it was Los Angeles, whose weather today will have a high of 83 degrees.

Currently in our nation's capital, it's almost squarely fifty degrees below that darling-sounding temperature.

_________

If you have been a reader for a while, or if you know me in person, you may have gained the inkling that I am not overfond of the heat.  I am actually one of those people who like it when it's about 55-65 degrees and you can get away with wearing a sweater or a light jacket ("Please describe your idea of a perfect date," goes the quote in my mind from Miss Congeniality.  "That's a tough one. I would have to say April 25th. Because it's not too hot, not too cold, all you need is a light jacket."). 

But I am human as well, and the grass is always greener where it's not close to being singed by frost.

So somehow I find myself thinking about California, and LA, and what a weird place California is.

I do love it, and I miss it on occasion despite loving DC very much.  As we watched Herr Meow's one-show allotment, which happened to be a new show on PBS called "Sid the Science Kid", I thought about its dichotomies.  How it's possible to produce such a wonderful show, with integrated science standards for elementary school children, with the amazing technology that the state possesses; and yet how that was not something that people immediately thought about doing.  (I definitely recommend the show if you have preschool or elementary age kids, by the way-- it's wonderful)

_________

I've been thinking about marriage, of course.  Because after all, one cannot think of California these days without thinking about how despite sealing the victory for Obama, the state voted to ban gay marriage.

But then comes the question: are the concepts of marriage and equal rights, in fact, equivalent?

I think that most people would not ever deny equal rights to everyone, if asked in the proper context.  But the word "marriage" seems to be charged with a special trove of added meaning by both sides of the argument. 

No discussion of marriage would be complete, however, without a little etymology.

First off, the whole melee of the word (marry, marriage, marital) comes from the Latin word for "husband".  Not wife, which is the far less chic word "uxor" and usually only graces our language in the charming form of "uxoricide"-- yes, yes, when someone kills their wife.

The etymology that Wiktionary cites is telling.  I quote:

Etymology

Middle English mariage, from Old French mariage, from marier “to marry”, from Latin maritare “to marry”, literally “give a husband to”, from maritus “married man, husband”, derived probably from Proto-Indo-European *mari-, perhaps a feminine stem of *mer-yo- “young man or young woman” (hence *mari-to- “given a wife”), if not somehow connected with mas “male” (stem mar-).

So, we have a simple statement from a time in the I-wish-it-were-more-distant past when women were her father's property until they were her husband's property.  Give the young man a girl to knock up until she gives out, and then get him another one, right?

Because while biologically speaking,  men are the truly expendable allelic variations of the species --endles fots of sperm, a dime a dozen, more fragile and conceived in larger numbers (105 males for every 100 females born) even if not all make it to adulthood; the truth is that through their combination of brawn, better educational opportunities (as in, most of them) and lucky avoidance of the gravid state (er, um, you know, the knocked-upppedness of being), men have managed to do this clever flip-flop of their biological destiny for a long time, where they have treated women as disposable chattel only on this earth to preserve the future of the species.

Okay, maybe that's a bit overgeneralizing and harsh, but this is the harsh reality from whence the archaic concept of marriage comes from.

_______

This should be the point at which those wanting to enter a "marriage" should ask themselves: do I want to be owned by my partner?

(this is the point at which I am dearly hoping you say "NO")

I think that marriage is an archaic word, and an archaic concept.  Although of course that did not stop the Federal Government from feeling that they had to DEFEND marriage in the Defense of Marriage Act of 1996, which President Clinton signed into law:

1. No state (or other political subdivision within the United States) need treat a relationship between persons of the same sex as a marriage, even if the relationship is considered a marriage in another state.
2. The Federal Government may not treat same-sex relationships as marriages for any purpose, even if concluded or recognized by one of the states.  (thank you Wikipedia)
   

________

If we wish to enter a (SECULAR) contract with a loved person of our choosing, it's should be an equal partnership.  A partnership with rights under the law, that are universally recognized as such and unalienable.

A social contract where that loved person, that person to whom we've committed is respected, recognized and protected by the law even after death --regardless of sex, ethnicity, or creed.

So, gay marriage?  I have problems with the term, honestly.  And for the reasons I already listed, which may strike some as far-fetched but to me are very meaningful and definitely overlooked in our society. 

I think it should be civil unions, one-on-one, between consenting adults, recognized by the state.  Why bring labels into things that are more powerful than labels themselves?

Now, if we're talking about getting the church mixed in, THAT is a completely different story and one that I do not feel qualified to tackle in a post.

But please, tell me what you think.  And by the way, here is something that tickled me in a good way.  December tenth is "A Day Without a Gay"-- to bring awareness to the fact that you cannot deny people rights based on their sexuality alone.

________

It's 37 degrees now.  I'm still cold.

Wasting Another Month, Perhaps

I normally don't listen to music while I write.

I have seriously wondered about this minor but ultimately important component of my creative (or not) process, but I think it's more just a very pedestrian manner of preference.  I bring it up because it's one of those things that NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month for those of you keeping score at home) has as this kind of getting-to-know you bit and it's always intimidated me.  I initially just filled it in as, " I don't listen to music while I write."

Also, I sometimes get so much into a song that I forget what else it is that I'm doing.  For instance, I 'm playing right now some old R.E.M. songs at random (thanks to the wonder and confusion of the new iTunes, I couldn't even tell you exactly how it decided to jump from the middle of "Reckoning" and launch straight into "Murmur" but okay) and my mind starts to play weird tricks.

I can't really write linearly.

I start remembering things and start getting pissed off at Michael Stipe (typo corrected: "Spite" for "Stipe"-- Freudian) for mumbling and whining.  And then I start to wonder why the arrangement is like that;  okay I like it but I dunno.... bongos for this song?  Weird.  And then I wonder about just how many people think that R.E.M. suck and are judging me based on my music tastes and how I'm a bit of a music snob myself but how some people are just EXHAUSTING with that holier-than-thou, I-knew-of-them-first shit.  It's like music is only good enough for listening if it goes through the precious sieve of their discerning ears and how dare we mere mortals have any damn taste whatsoever because seriously?  You like Top 40?  Are you insane?

And then there are the emotional reactions.  For instance, I still have not figured out exactly why "(Don't Go Back to) Rockville" makes me bawl every time.  I mean, there are a million beggy, pleading, please-don't-go songs out there, and few of them (okay, none!) make me enter some sort of mentally feeble crise de foi state where I wonder just HOW HORRIBLE Rockville is. 

(It isn't)

But yes.  It's too much going through my mind to write.  On the other hand, I guess that's the thing: the song occupies so much of my available synapses that if I write, I can only seem to write about me and the song, thereby creating this solipsistic spiral of action and reaction where I cannot seem to talk about anything other than how that revealed lyric or that chord or that jangly guitar makes ME feel.  Not you.  Me.

("house in order"?  WHY?!)

Anyway.  Here is day one.  Since there is no theme for the month and like a freak I'm also doing NaNoWriMo, I think I'll make my own theme.  It shall be "MIND DUMP".

Read and enjoy.  I hope.

Oh and say hello if you're a lurker or if you're coming from NaBloPoMo, will you? 

Here to Analyze the Party, Forty Years Late

I just finished watching "La Dolce Vita" and I have this intense need to do several things:

1.  Blog about it (check!)
2.  Tell you just how beautiful and depressing it all is.  All of it.  All two-plus hours of it.
3. Repeat a million times just how gorgeous Marcello Mastroianni is.  We're talking gorgeous.  Goooooorgeous.  Really, really, really, really untouchably beautiful.  Sometimes it kind of hurts your eyes a little to look at him in certain scenes, when he's smoking and looking sideways and just exuding manliness.
4. Learn Italian.  Italian is like sexy Spanish-- even the ugliest people sound sexy speaking Italian, which is rather amazing because I'm sure that if you're speaking and listening to Italian because you're Italian and you're not thinking about it you're not even remotely thinking that you sound sexy.  But such is an outsider's perspective.
5. Did I mention this is an incredibly depressing movie?  It's happy and all and I know it's supposed to be about sex and debauchery, but in a way saying that it's supposed to be about happiness and sex and debauchery is like saying that "Schindler's List" is this movie about this guy and his factory.
6. No one has a sweet life.  If you think you envy someone else's life, be they famous or not, you're certainly not living their life.
7. Innocence is a scary mirror for many.

Alrighty-- ciao for now, darlings.

A Red Star That Points To Shameless Capitalism, However, IS Ironic, Alanis

First off, thank you to DC Blogs for picking up my post from yesterday!  And thank you to you kind new readers who are taking your time to look around-- allow me to direct you to the archives on yonder right-hand side bar ---->

And to follow up to all the lovely new readership taking a tour of the place today I have... relatively little.  I'm watching Dancing With The Stars, and although some of the performances have been quite captivating and fun, there is a high degree of creepiness with those reeeeeally young dancing kids posing as adults and Cloris Leachman being all doddering and weird and drunken-acting.  She's the one to beat?  Holy crap-- is ABC issuing powerful narcotics through the airwaves?

I think I should watch ABC more often in order to test my theory.

Also --and I realize these are just my regional ads and people reading elsewhere don't get to see them-- but ads are also creepy.  Barbie Bucks?  Bond Girl fragrance, with not-so-subtle rich person subliminal message to INSTALL A SAFE IN YOUR HOUSE BECAUSE THE ECONOMY IS TANKING, and okay, not creepy but Katie Holmes should rethink her newest hairdo because it makes her look overly mumsy and oh yeah:

The magic of Macy's?

Macy's does not stand for magic anymore.  Macy's Inc. --or it's soulless parent company, Federated Stores, which decided to clean the slate and drop the evil Federated name and just *be* Macy's-- has systematically bought up the glittering competition and stripped America of most of their beloved regional iconic stores.

Macy's is all about the sales and the ridiculous amount of coupons and about the aggressive red-and-stars agenda, even if they insist in pushing the iconic clout of their own name themselves.  Sure, sailors have Polaris; but any savvy shopper worth her salt knows to follow that evil little red star armed with the coupons and milk it for all its worth. 

Having said that, they do seem to have a sale almost every single weekend.  Maybe that's not all bad.

But I still hold a funny grudge for never having been able to shop at the Liberty House in Honolulu thanks to Macy's evil acquisition of the chain in 1999-- an opportunity I wasted back in 1997, the first time I was ever there.

_________

The moral of the story?  Shop today, and shop tomorrow, but cherish the unique experience while it is still there.  Also, don't max out your credit cards because you won't be doing any more shopping at all for a while, now will you?

Oh yeah, I guess you will.  But that's only because credit card companies know you're a sucker.

Some Say He'd Be One Hell of a Leader of the Free World...

I have to come clean with you guys: this political rigmarole is really getting on my nerves. 

If I have to hear one more thing about how so-and-so is a liar, or a saint, or a hero, or a community something-or-other, or over/underqualified for the job, or a VPILF I also like to hate, I think I'm going to seriously consider voting Libertarian or something.  Not that there is anything wrong with the Libertarian party, per se, but there is a part of me that feels that "Want not, waste not" also applies to political votes; last I checked, we're a bipartisan system.  Alas, a vote for a party not in the system is kind of a wasted vote.

The bigger irritant these days, too, happens to be the onslaught of Facebook political groups cropping up faster than you can rip chads out of ballots.  For every one group supporting a candidate, there are five denouncing him or... quite frankly... her.  It makes me a little sick to my stomach how people really hate Sarah Palin.  I mean, whatever happened to respectful dissension?

Anyway.  I am glad that Facebook also caters to the apolitical renegades such as myself by creating such wonderful groups as "I FLIP MY PILLOW OVER TO GET TO THE COLD SIDE,"  "I have a procrastination problem but I'll deal with it tomorrow," "Saint Magnum P.I. : Patron Saint of the Mustache," and "The Stig."  These groups make me feel part of something truly light and silly, and of something lasting, because, really, those of you who don't flip over your pillow in the middle of the night and reach a delightful coolness to rest your cheek upon have no idea what you're missing. 

Mm.  Cold pillow.

Speaking of previous topics, though, if The Stig were eligible, he would totally get my vote: strong, silent, and a hell of a driver under any condition.  Isn't that what we need in a leader?  He's the total awesomeness leadership package, with his nice jumpsuit and helmet, and with access to all manner of amazing cars.  If that doesn't recommend him, I don't know what does.

Yes, there is that sticky bit about him being anonymous and British, but really, technicalities are so odious, aren't they?

Maybe I'll write him in.